Writer E. Jean Carroll (C) arrives in Manhattan Federal Court on the first day of her defamation case against former President Donald Trump. She accused him of raping her in a department store dressing room in the nineties.
Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images
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Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images
Writer E. Jean Carroll (C) arrives in Manhattan Federal Court on the first day of her defamation case against former President Donald Trump. She accused him of raping her in a department store dressing room in the nineties.
Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images
NEW YORK — Attorneys for former President Trump and E. Jean Carroll, the woman who accused him of raping her in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s, have presented diametrically opposed accounts of what happened or it did not occur to a jury on Tuesday. , the first day of trial in Carroll’s civil suit against Trump.
Carroll’s attorney, Shawn Crowley, began her opening presentation by clearly telling the story at the heart of Carroll’s allegations. Crowley described Trump locking Carroll inside a locker room, forcing her to have sexual intercourse, even when she resisted. Crowley said that now, almost three decades later, Carroll is trying to hold Donald Trump accountable for what he did to her in that dressing room and to “restore her good name”.
There is no video or forensic evidence to support Carroll’s rape claim, and Carroll isn’t even sure if the attack happened in 1995 or 1996. But Crowley told jurors that this is not a “he said, she said” case, because Carroll’s allegations will be supported by the testimony of two of Carroll’s friends who she told shortly after the alleged assault, with key details supported by two witnesses who used to work at Bergdorf Goodman.
In his opening statement, Trump’s lawyer Joseph Tacopina attacked every element of the allegations, starting with Carroll’s character, saying she was motivated by money and fame. “You cannot allow her to profit from her abuse of this process and her attempts to deceive you,” Tacopina said, adding that her allegations undermine “real rape victims.” He said Carroll’s inability to remember the month or even the year of the alleged attack makes it impossible for Trump to provide an alibi.
Trump is accused of battery and defamation in the lawsuit, which was filed late last year. Carroll has a separate civil suit against Trump for defamation only, which did not go to trial.
The jury in the case is anonymous, for security reasons. The six men and three women will be known only by their assigned numbers, and will arrive and depart daily by car, and will be dropped off at undisclosed drop-off points.
Most of Tuesday morning was taken up by jury selection. But even before prospective jurors were questioned, New York federal district court Judge Lewis Kaplan bluntly warned both legal teams to advise their clients and witnesses to avoid making statements that “likely to incite violence or civil unrest,” and warned against “making comments or engaging in conduct that has the potential to endanger the safety or well-being of any individual or the rule of law , particularly as it applies to the proceedings in this chamber.”
Trump has been known to attack judges and lawyers, and Carroll herself, on social media.
In addition to Carroll’s friends and former Bergdorf employees, Carroll’s attorneys said they will call to the stand two women who say Trump made aggressive and unwanted sexual advances, Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds . They will also present excerpts from the “Access Hollywood” video in which Trump brags about his sexual conquests, in vulgar terms.
At the time it was released, Trump dismissed the tape as “locker room talk,” And Trump’s lawyer Tacopina told jurors that this was: “it’s certainly not an admission of anything,” he said.
Tacopina is not saying whether Trump will take the stand in his defense; if he doesn’t, then the defense team only has one witness, Dr. Edgar Nace, a psychiatrist.
While Crowley maintained a calm demeanor as he explained Carroll’s demands, Tacopina at times appeared to be genuinely angry, his hands gripping the lantern and his voice rising.
